New Jersey Foundation for Open Government
Shining a light on local government
Congress passed the Presidential Records Act in 1978, following the Watergate scandal. The Act requires that presidential records be preserved and transferred to the National Archives. CNN Politics Politico: Staffers tape back together presidential records Trump rips up by Eli Watkins June 11, 2018
Ruling on a FOIA lawsuit brought by a public advocacy group, a federal judge has ordered disclosure of documents that back up EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s public statements with regard to climate change that he made on CNBC last year. The EPA must provide the documents by July 2 or else an explanation by July Read More …
Upholding a lower court, an Appellate Court ruled on 6/4/2018 that incident reports relating to a Union County jail inmate’s death are disclosable, subject to appropriate redactions for personal identifiers. The Court rejected the argument that an incident report is exempt from disclosure as a medical record. NJ Open Government Notes Appeals court rules Read More …
On May 23, 2018, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the sale of public property calls for transparency and that the identity of buyers at public auctions must be disclosed in order to guard against fraud and abuse. The particular case before the Court concerned the sale of confiscated sports memorabilia. We note that Read More …
Government agencies conduct surveys for a variety of reasons, such as to determine public opinion on an issue, the level of need for a service, or the extent of a problem. The applicability of the Open Public Records Act — and/or common law right of access — to the responses for one such survey is Read More …